Robert C. Harris Jr.

1946 - 2025

Robert C. Harris Jr.
06/25/1946 - 07/08/2025
Robert C. Harris Jr. died surrounded by his family on July 8, after suffering a stroke. He was 79.
Mr. Harris was a prominent investment banker who helped shape the financial landscape for technology, media and healthcare companies at the dawn of the digital age. Known to colleagues and friends as Bob, he spent more than four decades in the world of finance, where he advised many of the most influential companies across the technology sector, including Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, ZTE, Cypress, Applied Materials, ASML, Cadence, Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, and many others.
Robert Cronley Harris Jr. was born in 1946 in San Francisco to Robert Cronley Harris, an attorney, and Nancy Gray Harris. Bob graduated in 1964 from the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, where he was quarterback and team captain for the school football team. After graduation, he was drafted into the Army during the escalation of the Vietnam War. He trained at the U.S. Army Intelligence School in Baltimore, where he was first in his class in map reading skills. On his way to be shipped to Vietnam, he was unexpectedly summoned by a General at Central NATO & U.S. Command in Heidelberg, Germany. There he was assigned as a topographer monitoring Soviet troop movements in Czechoslovakia.
After his military service, Bob earned both a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.
His entrance into the world of finance seemed to be foretold. He came from a long line of West Coast financiers. In 1850 his great-great-grandfather, James King of William, founded the first bank in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. His great-grandfather, Joseph L. King, was President of the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board and 1910 authored a comprehensive history of the institution.
Bob held a succession of leadership positions at well-known investment firms during the rapidly changing landscape of technology and finance in the digital age. He began his career in 1981 at Robertson Stephens & Company, a firm that was known as one of the "Four Horsemen," specializing in Silicon Valley venture-backed tech and biotech IPO's. From 1984 to 1989, he was a General Partner, Managing Director, and Director at Alex Brown & Sons, one of the nation's oldest investment banks.
In 1990, he co-founded Unterberg Harris, a boutique investment bank in New York that provided funding and strategic guidance to a generation of emerging growth companies in biotechnology, software, telecommunications, and global security.
He left Unterberg Harris in 1997 to join Bear Stearns, where he held the positions of Senior Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Head of the Technology Group and Co-Head of the Global Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) Group. He played a key role in the firm's expansion into China and India, helping to build out its international TMT coverage. He was also instrumental in Bear Stearns' strategic move into internet IPOs, working alongside a new colleague, Jody Owen; their partnership led a wave of high-profile tech offerings. Bob and Jody were married a few years later. After the collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008, Bob became Vice Chairman of investment banking at Rutberg & Company and was a founding partner at Stone Key Partners. In recent years, he was a partner at Catapult Advisors.
Bob is survived by his wife, Jody Owen Harris of Belvedere; three children from his first marriage to Jeannette (Cissy) Harris: Gray Harris DelBono of San Francisco, Robert Cronley (Beau) Harris III of New York City, and John Max (Jay) Harris of Marin County; a stepdaughter, Caroline Belo Barton of Orinda; and six grandchildren. He is also survived by his sister, Lucie Harris Alexander of Tiburon, and his brother, William Gray Harris of Los Angeles.
He was a member of the Pacific Union Club, the Bohemian Club, the Burlingame Country Club and the San Francisco Yacht Club.
Bob had deep maritime roots. His maternal great-grandfather, Captain William J. Gray, founded the Red Stack Tugboat Company in San Francisco, which later became part of Crowley Maritime Corporation, and his grandfather, Captain William J. Gray Jr., was a well-known merchant mariner and yachtsman. Bob's first job after graduating from UC was in the shipping department at Standard Oil of California. He had learned basic nautical skills and the principles of seafaring on his grandfather's boats and he remained an avid yachtsman throughout his life. He owned several wooden sailboats and motorboats at his home on the shore of Long Island near Sag Harbor. He built his first boat-a wooden dinghy-by hand at age 12 and launched it with ceremony into San Francisco Bay. Some years later, to his wry amusement, the dinghy sank to the bottom of Lake Tahoe.
A memorial celebration of his life will be held in September.
In lieu of flowers please donate to The Culinary Institute of America Checks payable to The Culinary Institute of America Attn: Accounts Receivable/Advancement Gift Processing 1946 Campus Drive, Hyde Park, NY 12538-1499